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revenge

I found myself dragged into a lunchtime session yesterday. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly a reluctant participant but reflecting on it now, it has already become clear that my participation is going to prove to be a huge mistake. For like most Sunday lunchtime sessions that take place when football is lying dormant on our calendars, we ended up fixated on a particular subject. Yesterday, that subject was revenge.

As a natural born coward and a firm believer in the concept that revenge, whilst obviously best served cold, should also be accompanied by a side order of smug self-satisfaction, I tend to fulfill my desire for retribution in ways which are so childish that I really wouldn’t want the details made public anyway. For me, simply knowing I have done something is usually enough.

However, if you think about it this does kind of miss the point. After all, if someone has wronged you enough to make you want to extract some kind of justice, surely it is far more effective if they actually know what you have done and why. And if everyone else also knows, it would surely send the message that you are not someone to be trifled with.

Sadly, imparting this opinion after a few Budweiser’s was clearly a mistake as in our alcohol induced state, everyone seemed to agree. As a consequence, we spent an afternoon filled with tales involving clingfilm, laxatives, superglue and porn sites which eventually deteriorated into the abuse of social media etiquette which in some instances bordered on illegal and inevitably, the use of bodily fluids.

Ironically, in spite there being six of us involved in this conversation all of whom have known each other for years, not one of us had the balls to admit to extracting revenge on each other. That was until someone let slip that some years ago, they’d had occasion to repay a debt to one of our number. A revelation which resulted in an instant change of mood as each of us considered the idea that it might be us whilst hoping to god that it wasn’t.

Of course, not for the first time it turned out that I had been the victim. News which clearly came as a huge relief to the others who then insisted that the guilty party divulge the nature of that revenge.

As a consequence, I discovered that some years ago, for the crime of drinking the last can of lager in the fridge –in spite of the fact that I had paid for it!- my ex-flat mate once wanked into my bath whilst I was on the phone to my mum. Hence, I now have a new nickname; Spunky.